


G and T on the Rocks

by velero



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Minor Erica Reyes, Minor Kira Yukimura, Minor Scott McCall, POV Stiles, Parent Derek Hale, Teacher Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 07:41:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2420597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velero/pseuds/velero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles' life as Beacon Hills' new kindergarten teacher is swinging along happily: Right up until he meets the parent of one of his favorite students and suddenly the world is all leather and heat and freaking <em>knees</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	G and T on the Rocks

His fingertips were sliding onto the doorknob, escape within reach, when Stiles heard a familiar name and reluctantly turned around to tune into Victoria Argent's current lunchtime rant.

"Hey, hey! There's nothing wrong with Tally."

Victoria's snapping eyes fixed on him and she repeated, " _Disgraceful._ " Her voice lost a smidgeon of its acid edge, but it was merely diluted acid, not acid-free. "I don't blame the children; they're far too young to know the inappropriateness of their dress and demeanor. But it's hardly a surprise that _that father_ and his disgusting habits should be setting an unhealthy and disturbing environment for his impressionable children. Someone should have a severe talk with that man."

She looked meaningfully around the break room, but none of the rest of the staff of the Beacon Hills Montessori School met her gaze. Third grade teacher Jared sank further into his seat, looking even more than usual like a scared rabbit trying not to be seen by a predator, while sixth grade teacher Greenberg had lifted the edge of his sandwich and was peering inside with his usual air of vague surprise. Even her daughter, Allison, the fifth grade teacher, had her head bent over her phone and was grinning as she typed. Probably texting Scott, who coordinated his breaks at the vet's clinic as much as possible to coincide with hers.

_Honestly, Stiles, the best way to deal with her is to simply not engage. I love my mother, but trying to have a rational conversation with her when her mind's made up is the way to madness via frustration. Yours. She won't be affected, trust me._

Usually Allison's warm voice sounding in his memory grounded him into resisting, and he'd managed to keep his cool for the whole first month of classes, but insulting one of his favorite kids was just not on, dammit!

"There's nothing inappropriate about Tally's behavior." He narrowed his eyes at Victoria, who narrowed her own right back at him.

"Oh, _really_."

"Yes, _really._ " Great, now he sounded like one of his kindergarten students!

Victoria sniffed. "I hardly find it surprising _you_ would approve of that man's disturbing dress habits given your own--"

Allison laughed loudly at that moment, drowning out her mother's voice, and Stiles jumped and looked at her. Allison's head was still bent over the phone and she was grinning as she typed, but he had the feeling she wasn't as unaware of the conversation as she appeared and was trying to save him...from himself. That was the kind of great friend she was.

He raked a hand through his hair and tried to quell his fuming, but couldn't quite stop himself from beating this particular dead horse. "Okay, look, I haven't even seen the man yet, but Tally is a great kid and one of the best adjusted in my class, so I hardly think--"

"Hah!" Victoria's eyes lit up. "He's never once picked his children up or dropped them off? Neglectful as well as scandalous!"

Now he was just mad. "They're not neglected. An aunt or uncle picks them up every day right on time. He works, you know. To support his family, and has made completely solid arrangements--"

"Works." Victoria's voice was scathing. "I can just imagine what kind of _work_ that man in those clothes--"

Taking a deep breath, he managed to collect himself and turn away, grab the doorknob, and make his belated escape. He walked off his annoyance as he headed out into the sunshine, envying Heather, who had lunchtime schoolyard duty today. He went to sit in his Jeep in the parking lot, not feeling sociable, and ate his lunch to the sound of a playlist he'd created during the first week and titled "V: The Victory Over."

Tally was a cool kid, dammit. And, he had no problem admitting, one of his favorites. On the first day of his first class for his Education degree, his prof had said, "You'll have favorite students in your classes. It's inevitable. We're emotional beings, not robots, and that's a good thing. Don't try to suppress it or deny it. The important thing, however, which you must keep in mind at all times, is that having favorites is natural and unavoidable, but showing _favoritism_ is not. You must consciously make sure you treat all your students, even the ones you find least likable, with the same even hand at all times. Then you'll be an acceptable teacher."

Sticking to that dictate wasn't hard since his class was filled with kids too young and cute to be anything but appealing. Even the whiny, the spoiled, and the bullying ones were too young to blame, and he was keeping a close eye on those ones in particular for signs of a bad home situation.

And, actually, Tally herself had somehow managed to deal with the bullies in the class way back during that first week of orientation. That's pretty much when she'd become one of his favorites, in fact. He'd been on recess duty outside when he'd seen a commotion on the swing set on the other side of the yard. He'd gently shaken off the children chattering up at him and set off across the playground, not rushing, no panic, but taking long strides. He could see it involved the twin troublemakers in his class crowding round a tiny figure hunched on a swing. From the bent head and long dark hair, he recognized Anya and instantly knew what was happening.

He lengthened his strides, but, before he reached the group, a small figure barreled into one of the boys from the back, shoving him so hard he fell. He recognized Tally as she turned on the other boy. He couldn't tell what she said, or how she did it, but somehow she had the twin shoved up against the metal swing set pole and was poking him in the chest as he looked down at her with wide eyes. She leaned closer and he tried to lean back, then nodded frantically.

"Hey, guys!" Stiles called out.

He was about to say something else, but Tally took one small step backwards and the boy, who was a good two inches taller than her, sidled away with care not to touch her, grabbed his brother, and they hightailed it for the other side of the yard.

"Uh." He stared after the culprits, blinking, then turned back to see Tally had sat down on the swing beside Anya and put an arm around her.

"It's okay," Tally was saying as he stopped in front of them. "Those nasty boys won't ever be mean to you again. I'll make sure."

And scared, shy little Anya, who rarely looked up from staring at the floor, actually _lifted her head_ to give Tally a wavery smile. Tally patted Anya's chest with her free hand, then looked at Stiles as he dropped to a crouch in front of them.

"Everything okay, girls?"

Tally's smile was blinding. "Hi, Mr. Stiles! Anya and I are best friends now!"

He couldn't help grinning back at her bubbling happiness. "Really? Cool!" He gentled his smile as he looked at Anya, who glanced up at him from under her lashes while leaning against Tally. "Are you all right, Anya?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation in her whisper of a voice.

She swiped the back of her hand over her cheek to catch a tear, but actually met his eyes for a moment, lifting her head enough for her hair to fall back and reveal the side of her face she usually tried her hardest to hide. The left side with its large birthmark, as though someone had flung an entire glass of grape juice in her face and it had splattered over her forehead, cheek, and neck. He knew exactly why Ethan and Aiden, the hellion twins, had been picking on her, and ached for what life must be like for her in a world where even adults were prone to stare and she'd already developed defensive behaviors, hunching herself as small and unnoticeable as possible and speaking in a whisper.

After that day, however, Tally and Anya were inseparable and the twins--and any other would-be bullies--kept a remarkable distance away from them. He'd even seen the twins stop and turn quickly to go back the way they'd come once when they spotted Tally coming down the corridor toward them. He had no idea how such a little girl had managed to put the fear of god into the swaggering assholes-in-training-wheels, but she seemed to be using her powers for good, so he left her to it. With just a glare, she even managed to make them behave themselves in class if they got disruptive enough to ping her radar. Honestly, it was hilariously awesome to watch, and had the unintended added benefit of the twins actually paying more attention, hence learning more, so it was all good.

Three-and-a-half weeks later, Anya stood a little straighter even when Tally wasn't at her side, spoke a bit less hesitantly, though still in a whisper, and smiled and even giggled like any other kid in the class. She was attentive and smart and clearly loved learning, with a curiosity to match Tally's (and Stiles') own. The latest triumph, in Stiles' marking of Anya's progress, was drawing herself and her mom and coloring her own cheek purple instead of obscured by dark hair. She even turned up one day wearing a lavender sweater he could've sworn Tally had worn several times before.

"Purple is cool." Tally nodded her head as she colored her drawing of herself entirely in purple from head to foot, clothes, skin, hair, and all. "G likes the Hulk because he's green, but I like Mystique better because she's blue, and blue is pretty like purple."

G, for Garvey, was Tally's brother, in Kira's first grade class. Stiles had met Garvey while waiting on the steps for the parents to collect all the kids in his class; Tally always ran to her brother happily as soon as she saw him. Garvey did seem to wear green quite a lot, though it was hard to tell it was a favorite color because, like Tally, he had remarkably...eclectic, let's say, taste in clothes.

The first time he'd seen Tally, on the first day of school, she'd been wearing a perfectly ordinary blue dress, but no one would notice it because she was wearing one red over-the-knee sock and one yellow. A week-and-a-half later, she turned up in striped red-and-white stockings and a matching striped T-shirt with a denim jumper over it. What had really made him stare, though, was her hair, which had turned bright orange overnight and was done in two long braids that stuck out from the sides of her head. Somehow or other.

"We're reading Pippi Longstocking before bed," she'd told him enthusiastically. "Auntie Erica helped me get dressed."

 _I just bet she did_ , he'd thought wryly, smiling as he agreed out loud that Pippi was awesome.

Auntie Erica picked up Tally and Garvey after school. Auntie Erica, now, if Victoria ever saw her, would ignite a rant of epic proportions on the topic of an Appropriate Dress Code for People in Charge of Children. Auntie Erica favored tight black leathers on her voluptuous figure, with deep-plunging necklines and stilettos, topped off with a long, luxuriant riot of blonde curls. She had a wicked gleam in her eyes as she looked him over the first time they met, and her lush red lips usually pursed into a smirk as soon as she saw him.

But she was waiting every day when he and the gaggle of kids erupted out the front doors, leaning against a black Camaro as sleek and gorgeous as herself. Sometimes a large guy would be leaning next to her: Uncle Boyd, he knew from Tally's family drawings and Garvey's delighted squealing when he saw him and ran to him to be picked up and swung around high overhead before being slung over one broad shoulder.

"Me, too!" Tally would chant, jumping up and down, and Boyd would hoist her in the air with his free hand like they each weighed a feather.

He still hadn't seen Tally's father, but he knew from his own observations that Tally was well taken care of, smart, loved, and happy, even if her family life appeared slightly...out of the mainstream. So was Garvey, from what he'd seen and what Kira said. The first Parents' Night was coming up soon, so he hoped he'd finally meet the--according to Victoria Argent--scandalously inappropriate father.

Had to admit, he was fucking looking forward to it.

Tally's drawings showed her dad as a towering figure, but a lot of kids saw their fathers that way. Stiles had his own kid drawings his mother had saved as evidence for the Towering Dad syndrome.

There was noticeably no mother in Tally's family. Her latest family portrait showed a stickish figure with dark tufts of hair sticking up all over its head that identified it as Garvey; herself next to him identifiable as the smallest of the group as well as by the striped stockings; the towering black-clad figure of the mysterious Daddy; Uncle Boyd big and imposing next to him, yet nevertheless dwarfed in comparison; and Auntie Erica with her Rapunzel like flows of yellow hair. All of them holding hands in a row in front of blobs of green and brown he eventually realized were trees. Interesting! Most kids liked to draw their house. Tally put them in a forest. Then he remembered from her file that they lived near the Preserve. Or possibly in the Preserve? He wasn't entirely sure where that address was, but it made sense of her choice. Maybe the family spent a lot of time in the Preserve.

Like, climbing rocks, maybe? One of Tally's drawings had been of her brother and herself standing on what Stiles had thought was a jagged hill until she'd printed carefully beneath it, with Stiles' help: _G and T on the rocks_.

He'd barely managed to hold in his snort of laughter as Tally had explained that Auntie Erica had a photo of them just like her drawing and had written the same thing on the back and kept it in her wallet to show people.

She'd told him, "Auntie Erica says G and T on the rocks is her favorite thing in the world."

Stiles had almost strangled himself keeping his voice smooth and laughter-free as he said, "I'm sure it is." He cleared his throat and said, "So are you called T at home?"

"Uh-huh. We're a poem: D, G, T. That's for Daddy, Garvey, and Tally."

"Oh, that's really cool! You're a poem because you rhyme." Then he'd explained rhyme to her, which she'd heard before at home, apparently, but couldn't remember what it was.

He didn't share with her that B and E also rhymed. Also, heh, why did "B and E" seem to fit so well?

Little Anya's drawing was just herself and her mother, a woman about Stiles' age but who already looked worn with anxiety and hard work. She was sometimes late to pick up Anya, but it wasn't her fault since she always arranged to leave the diner she worked at to get the right bus to be on time; buses didn't always stick to schedules. He didn't mind waiting with Anya those days, sitting on the steps together in the fall sunshine and listening to her talk about whatever interested her that day in her whispery voice.

"Mommy's saving up to fix my face," she'd confided one day late last week. "It costs a lot, though, so we have to wait."

He'd put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. "That sounds great, but you don't need fixing, you know. You're not broken. You're beautiful just the way you are."

She'd surprised him by looking right up at him, hair falling back entirely to bare her face to the light, and smiled. "That's what my mommy says, and Auntie Erica, too."

He'd blinked in surprise. "Tally's Auntie Erica? Is she your auntie, too?"

"No." She'd giggled in that way five year olds do when they think you're being silly. "But I get to borrow her because I don't have an auntie of my own. I get to borrow Uncle Boyd, too." She spoke with a pleased smile.

He knew everything was well in the homes of those two of his kids.

If he had to worry about anyone, it would be the irritating, always acting-out twins, who were also picked up by an aunt and uncle. Uncle Ennis really _was_ a hulking figure, with "menace" practically tattooed on his forehead across a permanent frown. But even he paled beside small, lithe Auntie Kali, who managed to beat out Auntie Erica in the skimpy clothes area; she especially seemed to hate shoes, being barefoot with elaborately painted toenails each time he'd seen her, and he wondered what she was going to do when winter came. She, like Auntie Erica, tended to smirk rather than smile at Stiles, but her smirk was more on the mean side than Auntie Erica's amusement. He'd watched carefully, but both Aiden and Ethan went to them easily enough, if with less squealing and enthusiasm than most of the kids greeted whoever was picking them up.

He'd even glimpsed their father once, standing beside the van with the blackened windows, leaning on a white cane, and recognized him by the cane and the dark glasses from the boys' drawings. They hadn't run to him, either, but they had stood beside him with a kind of attentive watchfulness Stiles had never seen them show to anybody else--a magnified version of their reaction to Tally these days--and waited till he'd stroke a hand over each of their heads before climbing into the back of the van.

He could've sworn the eyes behind the dark glasses had paused on him for a long, unnerving moment before the man turned and got into the van. He'd licked his dry lips as he watched the van drive away.

He wasn't looking forward to the Parents' Night meeting with Deucalion Smith. He wondered if Victoria had ever encountered him.

Victoria, being the seventh grade teacher, didn't see her charges out into the pick-up area. He assumed she'd caught sight of Tally and Garvey somewhere in the corridors, however, given her latest rant.

Okay, he'd been startled himself, he could admit, when Tally had arrived this morning without her long, dark curls and wearing what were clearly her brother's clothes. The green cargo shorts were meant to be baggy, but not quite that oversized, and ditto for the T-shirt with a Tyrannosaurus Rex's head, mouth gaping wide to show rows of big, pointed white teeth and a red tongue, lunging out of a black-and-gray background. The striped red-and-white hoodie had the bottom of the sleeves rolled up. He doubted her shoes were Garvey's because they seemed to fit her, but they were battered yellow-and-red hi-tops unlike her usual choices.

But it was her hair that stopped him dead, mouth fallen open. All her hair was gone except for a mohawk.

"I'm wearing G's clothes this week, Mr. Stiles!" she announced happily. "And he's wearing mine!"

He managed to shut his mouth with an effort. "I see that. You look--very different!"

She grinned like he'd paid her a huge compliment. "Uh-huh. Daddy cut my hair, but he made Uncle Boyd shave the sides."

Which put to rest Stiles' wondering whether this was Auntie Erica's doing behind Tally's dad's back. Huh.

"G's shoes were too big. I got new ones at Sally Ann's!" She admired her worn, but clean and colorful shoes. "G got new shoes, too. I chose his shoes and he chose mine."

"Awesome," he managed, and turned to greet the rest of the kids as Tally went to her desk with a big smile.

He caught sight of Garvey at recess. Sure enough, the kid was actually wearing Tally's denim jumper, with a long-sleeved blue T-shirt underneath, and Pippi striped stockings. And while his hair was its usual short, dark tufts that stuck up all over, jammed on top was her purple furry cat's ears headband. Foofy, fluffy cat's ears. On his head. Stiles wasn't sure why the headband flummoxed him more than, you know, the dress and stockings, but.... Then he looked at the boy's feet and blinked at the lemon-yellow My Little Pony shoes with bright sky-blue laces.

"Oh, my god," he murmured.

"I know," Kira said beside him, making him jump and clutch his heart as he looked at her.

She winced and touched his arm in apology, then they turned and stared at Garvey, who was in a group of boys and girls staring admiringly at his shoes and touching his ears.

"Why aren't they making fun of him? Has anyone picked on him? He's wearing a dress, Kira, and a furry headband. And My Little Ponies on his feet!"

"I know! The other kids seem more envious than anything else. Also, he somehow managed to make the bullies agree with a No Trespass zone around him and his friends on the first day of school, so they avoid him. Mind you, his usual taste in clothes is kind of...different even when he's not wearing his sister's clothes. Maybe they're just used to expecting the unexpected from him. "

"Yeah, Tally's, too."

He gave Kira his most tragic eyes and pouting mouth. "I feel old. I suddenly feel, like, really old! How did that happen? Also, as an only child, I'm feeling deprived. If only I'd had a sister, I could've worn her fluffy purple ears to school one day. Except I'd just have been shunned even more than usual." He sighed.

She patted his arm. "It's all right. You can go to Jungle and let the girls doll you up."

He chuckled and tucked that thought away for later. "Hey, did you see Tally's hair?"

Kira looked up at him. "No. Garvey said his dad and Uncle Boyd gave her a mohawk, though, and he wants one next week because it's the coolest."

He turned to face her entirely. "Have you ever met him? Garvey's dad?"

She shook her head and dropped her voice even lower. "Given Victoria's attitude toward him, however, I'm totally looking forward to it."

They grinned and parted for their respective classrooms.

\-----

So, here it was: Parents' Night. Five weeks into the year and he'd get to talk to the parents about how their kids were doing and meet those parents he hadn't before. He glanced around the neat classroom nervously, telling himself he was prepared. This was his first ever Parents' Night! He had a right to be nervous.

He checked his hand compulsively, but, no, the glitter really was all gone. If he washed it again, he'd have no skin left. Everything was fine. Calm the fuck down.

He turned to the door with a smile at a knock and greeted the first two parents.

An hour later, he took a long drink from his water bottle and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Stretching so his bones cracked, he ended with running a hand through his hair and thought over the meetings. They'd all gone surprisingly smoothly. Though only "surprisingly" because he knew he'd been expecting _something_ to go wrong. He'd texted Scott in the break between his first and second set of parents, and Scott, bless his little vet-in-training socks, had soothed him like a trembling puppy.

"Just remember: You're the greatest!" Scott had ended the call.

"Rah-rah me!" he'd replied on rote, and put his phone down with a grin in time to greet the next parents.

All the meetings had gone well. The most difficult was having to explain to Jaicen's parents that he suspected the boy had some learning difficulties, but he'd given them brochures he'd gathered beforehand and got them to agree to his setting up a meeting for them with the school counselor, who would talk to them about moving Jaicen into special classes. The kid was a sweetheart, but he'd do better in an environment geared to his needs, with more one-on-one attention than Stiles could give him.

Anya's mother had come in dressed in what was possibly her best dress, a summery cotton print with a pretty blue cardigan, biting her lip and with an anxious look. He'd reassured her that Anya was bright and dove into every topic he introduced and was doing great. He'd also, carefully, tried to put to rest any fears she might have that Anya was being bullied. She'd relaxed, then, and smiled, her face transformed so he had a fleeting image of her as she might have been at a high school prom, twirling carefree around the floor, before pregnancy had made her drop out and learn to fend for herself.

"Tally's a nice child," she'd nodded, "and Anya's bloomed since getting a real friend of her own. Tally's family have also been great in including Anya in some outings." She paused and took a breath. "More than that, even. There's something I wanted to mention to you, something we want to try."

He leaned forward, listening attentively. "Okay."

"It's Erica's doing." She tilted her head. "Erica Reyes, that is. You know?"

He didn't recognize the surname, but he figured there could only be one Erica in the vicinity of the kids. "Auntie Erica." He smiled.

She smiled back. "Right. She suggested makeup might help Anya feel less conspicuous. I tried when she was a baby, but none of them really worked. Erica showed me a new cover-up, though, created for people with scars and even other children with birthmarks on their faces. It's a heavier formula, hypoallergenic, and has to be blended specially to match the skin color, so it's expensive, but--" She broke off, her hands twisting the cloth handles of her handbag in her lap. "They've offered to help, Tally's family, that is, and it might really make a difference for Anya, so I've accepted. We're going to try it next week. I wanted to give you a heads-up in case any problems come up...."

She trailed off, but he was nodding. "Absolutely. I'll keep an eye out. I don't expect any trouble, and it sounds like it could be great for her confidence if it works out, but I will monitor things, I promise. Kids at this age accept change pretty readily."

She'd left looking more relaxed, if just as tired.

He tilted his head at hearing a tapping noise down the corridor and coming closer. He realized who it must be with a hint of mixed panic and dread, but got up and went out of the classroom. Sure enough, it was Deucalion Smith. The man was alone; maybe Kali and Ennis were looking after the twins. Smith seemed confident enough, but Stiles walked toward him, calling out so he didn't startle him.

"Hello, Mr. Smith. I'm Stiles Stilinsky, the boys' teacher. My classroom's this way."

As he closed a hand on Stiles' arm, reaching it with uncanny accuracy as Stiles fell into step beside him, Smith said, "Please call me Duke. May I call you Stiles? I'm so used to hearing about Mr. Stiles from the twins."

Stiles managed a chuckle and tried to ignore the hint of sultriness in the man's voice, which somehow made him think of an oozing substance.

Duke seemed oddly more interested in probing into Stiles' credentials, background, and family life than he did in hearing about the twins' behavior and attention problems. Stiles gritted his teeth as he fended off another personal question and focused again on the boys' aggression and need to dominate.

"Growing pains." Duke waved a hand in the air. "I'm sure, with time, they'll become more confident with their sense of self and their place in the world."

Stiles blinked at the inane comment and opened his mouth, but Duke spoke over it as though he'd actually seen Stiles about to speak. "But I will speak to them about their behavior in class, and impress on them the importance of forging amicable relations with their social peers."

He stood up, the meeting clearly over as far as he was concerned, and Stiles shrugged and saw him to the door, pointing him in the right direction for the front entrance. He doubted anything about the twins would change, but he'd done what he could, and at least they were manageable in class. They weren't the brightest, but they weren't stupid, either, and they did learn well, and even contributed nicely, when they paid attention and stopped being little douchebags-in-training for awhile. Ethan, in particular--it'd taken awhile, but he'd finally learned how to tell them apart, at least most of the time--showed signs of some actual warmth and kindness.

He was turning back inside the classroom, having checked his watch, when he caught sight of a figure striding down the corridor and he froze, mouth agape and mind blanking on everything except the porn fantasy in a skirt heading toward him.

A porn fantasy of black hair, stubble, leather jacket, and _black leather skirt_ swinging with each long, firm stride of muscled legs in knee boots. With knees above them. Pale, naked knees between the black boots and the _black leather skirt_ that swung side to side at each step.

"Oh, my god." He had one appointment left. The skirted porn vision in black leather had come out of Kira's first grade classroom at the end of the corridor and was heading for him.

It couldn't be. Could it? Oh, hell, how could it possibly be anybody else? He entirely fit the figure that had fueled Victoria Argent's latest rant. Tally and Garvey's father, the fabled, towering Daddy in black leather. Jesus fuck. He wasn't paid enough to sit knee-to-knee in miniscule desks with... _that_.

The skirt! Oh, god! The skirt might ride up when he sat down. He was, in fact, a big guy in life and not just Tally's pictures. He'd have to...wiggle to fit himself into Tally's little desk. His bare knees would be even more bare when they were staring accusingly right at Stiles from beneath the panes of the black leather skirt, which might very well end up an inch or two above those knees, stretching across the cords of muscle covered with hair-dusted skin, and the knees themselves spread apart, inches of dark space between them--

He took a deep breath and tried to center himself. No panic. Just another father. He'd met a bunch tonight! Not to mention all the other years of his life before this moment! Many, many fathers! Not even counting all the men who weren't fathers!

Every one of whom had been wearing pants.

Oh, wait, shorts! He'd seen lots of men in shorts, with naked knees. And bathing suits! Of _course_.

...Though shorts and bathing suits weren't skirts. They especially were never, ever black leather skirts, or anything approaching a black leather skirt.

 _Get a grip, idiot!_ he told himself, then froze, attention focused, as Duke paused halfway down the corridor to say something to his innocent little student's porn-vision father; ugh, stop that, brain.

Was that a growl? One of them _growled_ at the other? Then Duke--he could see it was Duke by his profile--chuckled and continued tapping his way down the corridor and the vision in black leather, skirt swinging even more aggressively, swish-swish-swish, naked knees flashing, closed in on him.

He was a grown-up, adult professional whose father was the Sheriff. He could totally do this without making a fool of himself or crossing a line.

Speaking of lines not to be crossed, eyes up! The man's eyes were _up there_. Meet the eyes; ignore the rest. He had plenty of practice of that with Auntie Erica.

"Hello! I'm Stiles. Stilinsky. Stiles Stilinsky, that is. Uh. You're Tally's father, right?" The last came out as a bit of a squeak, but, overall, he gave himself an eight out of ten on the nonchalant, professional adult scale. Well, maybe a six.

"Derek Hale."

Okay, now at least he knew which one of them had growled.

He managed not to flail his hand by dint of clutching the door jamb, which proved doubly lucky as he tripped over his own foot in turning inside and the hold kept him from falling on his face.

Though at least if he'd fallen, his skirt wouldn't have flown up and shown off his naked ass. Seeing as how he wasn't wearing a black leather skirt--

Oh, god. Naked ass. Were black leather skirts anything like kilts, in the sense of what a kilt-wearing man might or might not wear beneath his kilt? Why didn't he know these basic cultural facts? The holes in his education were shocking!

"Here's Tally's desk!"

Derek Hale seated himself with a decisive gracefulness Stiles could only envy as he folded his long limbs into the desk beside Tally's. He wiggled to get comfortable--then noticed, with an inner snort at the reversal of his earlier fancy, that Derek Hale had settled without any wiggling.

Though his knees were as far apart as the desk allowed. And naked. And close at hand, with a dark space between where the skirt ended and--

He snapped his eyes up to the man's face, but got a reprieve as the eyes were roaming around the room rather than watching him.

He launched into babble to distract himself. "So, Mr. Hale, it's good to meet you at last. I'm glad to say Tally's a delightful student, one of the best...."

He rambled on. Hale said little, just asked a few pertinent questions, but his intense eyes never shifted from Stiles' and his attention never wavered. At the end, he relaxed and...smiled. That was, Stiles was almost entirely sure, a smile. An actual smile in which the corners of the stubble-encircled red lips twitched upwards and tiny lines around the eyes deepened just a fraction.

Stiles smiled back, blinking his eyes to break his own intense focus.

"Awesome." It came out weaker than his usual, but at least there wasn't a hint of a squeak this time.

Hale got up with the creak of leather and stood for a moment, looking as tall and imposing as in Tally's pic as he loomed above Stiles, until Stiles snapped his mouth shut and scrambled to his own feet.

"Great! Good talk! So nice to meet you!"

Hale's eyebrows scrunched together in the middle. For a dazzling moment, Stiles thought he might be going to say something vaguely social, but then Hale just nodded and said, in a gruff voice, "Thanks for your time," and headed for the door.

"Any time!" He followed Hale to the door and stared at the swish, swish, swish of the black leather skirt as it retreated from his view, taking with it the broad shoulders in black leather above it and the backs of the bare knees beneath it and the black knee boots at the bottom and the artfully chaotic black hair at the top. "Time well spent. Excellent. Bye!"

Hale was gone and he was talking to blankness. Air rushed back into his lungs as he collapsed into his desk chair, sucking in sweet oxygen like he'd just emerged from the deep, dark sea.

Then he jumped to his feet and made a beeline for Kira's classroom. He peeked around the edge of the doorway, but she was alone and was shrugging into her jacket.

"Kira! I need a reality check! Did I just see what I thought I saw? Or have I slipped into an alternate plane of mental existence and am hallucinating my own fantasies as the parent of one of my students and so completely inappropriate for my sexualized objectification?"

She laughed and linked her arm with his as they walked out of the building into rose-tinted light. "Breathe, Stiles. You haven't lost your remaining marbles yet. He's very real and down to earth. A handshake like anyone else's, nice smile--"

"Wait, wait. He touched you? Shook your hand? He never touched me! And you got an actual, all-out smile? Not just a tiny upward twitch of the corners of his mouth within delectable stubble?"

"Yes?" She laughed again and shook his arm. "Come on, you didn't spazz out during the entire meeting, did you?"

Of course he hadn't. He protested the very thought as they crossed the parking lot, then kissed her cheek at her car and jogged over to his Jeep.

As he settled behind the wheel, his mind was whirling. He was almost certain he'd conducted himself with absolute coolness and an air of competence and professionalism. It wasn't his fault Hale hadn't offered his hand--the one with the dark-hair dusting the knuckles and large silver rings on the ring and middle fingers and an even bigger thumb ring and a wide silver bangle encircling the wrist beneath the black leather sleeve where there was a tantalizing glimpse of tanned skin and more dark hair....

He thumped his forehead onto the steering wheel. On the bright side, it was weeks before he'd have to sit knee-to-naked-knee across from Derek Hale in another meeting.

On the dark side, it was weeks before he'd hear the swish-swish-swish of leather and smell the weirdly intoxicating scent of forest and moist earth and ozone Hale exuded and watch the mesmerizing swing of the sexiest leather skirt since Pullo and Vorenus had heated up his screen on DVD.

\-----

Except it wasn't all that long, after all. In fact, it was just two days later, on Saturday, when he heard his name squealed and looked down to see Tally smiling up at him.

"You're not at school, Mr. Stiles!"

He laughed. "No, I'm not."

She was still wearing her brother's clothes. The week of their challenge or experiment or whatever it had been ended tomorrow, he'd been told, so she'd probably be back in her own clothes on Monday, looking like her usual self--except with a mohawk, which wouldn't be growing out all that quickly. She seemed pleased with it, though, so it didn't matter.

"T, let's let Mr. Stiles enjoy his days off in peace."

He looked up at the quiet voice and his eyes glomped onto Derek Hale's face in all its stubbly, eyebrowed glory. Hale was looking down at his daughter with a fond smile, so Stiles felt safe sending a quick glance downwards himself, just to check.

And, yup, still wearing the black leather skirt of unbearable hotness! In the middle of the grocery store! On a Saturday morning!

Or, wait, possibly a different skirt? He looked more closely. This one had buckles. A big silver buckle in front and smaller silver buckles at the sides. The other one didn't have buckles, right? He'd have noticed honking big shiny silver buckles! Which meant there was a closet in the Hale house with more than one leather skirt in it. And leather jackets. He could see it clearly: a closet with nothing but a row of leather jackets next to a row of leather skirts. Skirts just hanging there waiting to be strapped around lean hips and fall cool and soft against muscled thighs and a naked-or-possibly-not-naked ass and--

His heart was galloping and he dragged his eyes up to see an eyebrow raised at him. His cheeks heated and he was saved from terminal embarrassment only by the amused look in eyes as green as Tally's blobby trees that looked into his. He managed a weak smile and cleared his throat, and made a show of lifting his wrist to look at his watch.

"Yeah, I better get going. Have a good weekend, kiddo! Mr. Hale." He nodded with dignity in the face of Hale's deepening amusement-- _now_ he gets a genuine smile out of the man, god, though he was pretty sure Hale was smiling more to himself than at Stiles.

As he turned away, he glimpsed Garvey coming to stand at his father's other side, dressed in a yellow sundress with blue-and-green striped stockings, and fled. With dignity, of course.

Kira and Allison found his plight far too amusing to be actually helpful, and Lydia, while she listened with at least half-an-ear from her apartment near MIT where she was working rapidly toward her Ph.D., had only one bit of advice to offer: "Just bone him and get it out of your system. For god's sake, Stiles, it's not rocket science."

"I can't do that! He's the parent of one of my students! Also, the _parent_ of two kids suggests he's probably straight. He's double-jeopardy, Lydia. He's, like, double the trouble. A doubly bad idea."

She looked up from her papers with a pained look and he shut up before she hung up on him.

Scott, like the devoted friend he was, fully understood his trauma and spent all afternoon playing video games with him and letting Stiles complain about the unfairness of leather skirts and biceps and silver bangles and broad shoulders and eyebrows and stubble and _knees_ all coming in the same untouchable package.

Scott did refuse to let Stiles elaborate lovingly on the tangent the word "package" sent him on, but, otherwise, Scott was his usual perfect friend and the only reason Stiles was able to get to sleep that night after jerking off only twice, with a shower between.

\-----

Tally appeared in class Monday morning wearing her own clothes, which included two different shoes, for some reason, neither of which matched the big red satin bow decorating her mohawk. He'd have previously blamed Auntie Erica, but, having now met Hale, he wasn't so sure he hadn't tied the bow himself. Stiles was confident by this point, however, that the bow was there because Tally had requested it. Hale's idea of clothing appeared to be that everyone should be free to choose their own style and that experimentation was cool, and damn what society and the Victoria Argents of the world thought.

Garvey was sporting his own mohawk, Stiles noticed as he did his lunchtime circuit of the playground. His didn't have a bow, but Stiles wasn't going to rule out the possibility one day.

He smiled and returned the waves as Tally and Anya skipped past him in some game that looked like hopscotch without a chalk outline and involved a lot of laughing. Anya's head wasn't perpetually tilted down and her hair flew back with her vigorous jumps, showing skin that looked as smooth and unmarred on the left as the right. The makeup experiment was working well and the difference in her confidence was outstanding. The other kids had been curious when she first came to school looking different, but they'd easily accepted the idea of a cream that could make the marks on her skin disappear.

"It's magic cream!" one of the kids had said, and all of them had nodded.

Even the hellion twins had been affected. They'd stared at her with frowns, looking as though the radical change in her appearance had somehow upset the stability of the boundary they'd depended on between loser and winner. Stiles had watched closely as they approached her after the other kids drifted back to their own activities.

But Aiden said, "You're pretty!" and even though his voice had been kind of accusatory, Stiles suspected it was the first time Anya had heard anyone but her mother and close friends say it, and she'd glowed.

\-----

Dad had taught him about patterns when he was a kid. Dad also taught him about the significance of a _broken_ pattern, so when he came outside with his class at the end of school and saw not Auntie Erica smirking at him from her hip-thrust lean against the Camaro, but Derek Hale waiting, feet planted apart, big arms crossed over his chest, Stiles' heart skipped a beat or three. He listened to the swish-swish-swish as Hale walked to them to meet Tally and her squeal, then bent over so she could hug his neck, burying her face in it before pulling back and giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and tried valiantly to keep his mind from fixating on a long open cupboard full of black leather skirts enticing his hand to just reach out and touch--

He tucked his hands in his pockets and smiled at Hale as he arrived at the bottom of the steps and looked up at him, Tally dancing at his side.

"Hello, Mr. Hale. This is a surprise."

"Mr. Stiles."

Hale seemed to get an inordinate amount of amusement out of using the kids' name for him. Stiles narrowed his eyes at him, but Hale's proto-smile just bloomed into a wide one.

"Erica and Boyd are out of town this week. I'll be picking up G and T."

"Right. Cool."

He was spared trying to beat his brain into thinking of something halfway intelligent to say by Kira's class exploding out the doors. Garvey bounced to Hale's side and the whole world got treated to Derek Hale bending over again in his leather skirt so his son could hug him, with Stiles having the ringside seat. Though tragically on the wrong side of the ring.

Hale's hands were both full, he noticed belatedly as Garvey and Tally both took miniature leather jackets from him and put them on, then kid-sized helmets. Motorcycle helmets. Stiles' eyes widened. Fuck, no. The world couldn't possibly be that unfair!

He looked beyond Hale and his eyes fixed on not the Camaro, but a sleek black-and-silver motorcycle. He had no clue what kind it was, but it instantly became the Hog in his head because hogs were badass motorcycles, he was pretty sure, and that looked like a bona fide badass motorcycle.

"Nice talking to you as always, Mr. Stiles."

Hale's amused voice snapped his attention back to him and he stared, then stuttered, "Right. Yes. Always a pleasure! Any time! Let's do it again!"

"Bye, Mr. Stiles!" Tally waved as she raced to the Hog and waited while Hale stowed her backpack in a lidded container thing, like a cute little miniature car trunk, if the word "cute" weren't incongruous for anything to do with a Hog.

Then Hale flung one muscled leg over the motorcycle, which made his skirt swish up into the air and _almost_ solve the mystery of whether that was a naked ass or a not-naked ass that settled on the long, leather seat--not to mention a naked or not-naked cock settling on it in front and, _ow_ , he was going to goddamned hurt himself trying not to think inappropriate thoughts in the fall sunshine on the steps of the Beacon Hills Montessori School as parents of thankfully mundane appearance all around him picked up their kids.

But he couldn't help glancing over at the Hales in between checking all his kids were picked up by the right guardian, because Hale plus skirt plus bare knees above multi-buckled motorcycle boots plus Garvey climbing on the back and Hale twisting around to make sure he was strapped in properly, then turning and lifting Tally up to sit in front of him and buckling her in himself before wrapping the two sides of his jacket around her and zipping it up a few inches was _too fucking much_.

He watched as Hale kicked the stand up, then started the big bike with a roar and took off...at a sedate pace as though he were driving a mom car. Garvey was snugly tucked in between the solid bulk of his father, hands holding Hale's sides under the leather jacket, and the sissy bar at his back, while he could just glimpse Tally's dark helmet between Hale's arms. Stiles glanced up one last time and saw Hale driving exactly in the middle of the lane as he slowed for the stop sign before turning right and disappearing from sight. If he got a ticket, it'd probably be for going ten miles under the speed limit.

Once all his kids were safely returned to their folks, Stiles retreated to the quiet balm of his empty classroom, with the smell of crayons and chalk and spilt juice to ground him back into reality. Or, in other words, to make a determined effort to stop wondering if leather skirts had a cock-pocket sewn inside their front panel and how that might work and what it might feel like. Scott was still at work. Stiles had to cope on his own. He decided cooking dinner for Dad and spending the evening with him would be the best method of wiping Derek Hale, the Skirt, and the Hog (Plus Kids) out of his mind.

He'd run the question of the viability and logistics of the cock-pocket past Scott when he got home from Dad's.

\-----

Life turned a little easier for him the next day because, while Hale and the Skirt and the Hog were waiting for him at the end of school, the Hog had acquired a sidecar that made it look almost sedate.

Okay, no, it still looked like a huge, gleaming, badass Hog but with a sidecar in which to safely stash the kids, so Derek and his skirt--this one had silver studs down the sides of the front panel and along the hem! rows of silver studs sparkling at him like tiny laughing mouths!--and motorcycle boots had the entire long leather seat on which to rest his possibly naked ass and his possibly free-wheeling cock.

He and Scott had decided together that cock-pockets inside leather skirts probably weren't really viable, in the sense of pinching and twisting and ow-ow-ow.

Flopping into bed that night after another shower, he reflected on how his own cock hadn't had this much attention since he was sixteen.

Hale and the Hog (plus Skirt plus Kids plus Knees plus Motorcycle Boots) bedeviled him the rest of the week, but, by Thursday, he was pleased to have become so blasé that he managed to keep his eyes fixed on Hale's face the entire time and have an entire conversation with him that consisted of at least three sentences beyond _Hello_. He was so pleased that he told Scott about it later.

"What did you talk about?"

Stiles wrinkled his brow. "I haven't a clue, Scott, that isn't the point."

Scott frowned back at him. "Okay. So what is the point?"

"The point is I've become so accustomed to his burning hotness that I no longer stare inappropriately at his midriff and below! Also, I discovered he's still laughing at me, but sometimes a genuine smile slips in after I say something I have no memory of, but which must've been a great line."

"Why don't you just bone him and get it out of your system?"

Stiles let his head thump down onto the desk.

Though maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. There was just the little problem (not counting the parent-of-one-of-his-kids problem) of Hale's probably being straight as a die. He ran the question past his friends at Jungle on a Sunday night. After describing Hale in all his glory, he looked hopefully at Tina as she applied the last of her makeup. She lifted an elegant eyebrow at him and shook her head before making her pronouncement:

"Honey, that boy is totally hittable."

"But he has kids! And aren't we making assumptions about his sexuality based on the flimsy criteria of his wardrobe choices through the...the unreliable lens of outmoded, and most likely horrifically offensive, views of gender--"

"I'm not talking about his skirt." Tina stood up and anchored her tall, feathered headdress more securely to her high-piled hair. "I'm talking about him being naked in here--or at least shirtless--a couple of Wednesdays a month like clockwork, dancing up a storm and working up a real pretty sweat on those abs of his. I've never seen him go into one of the back rooms, but I don't keep as close an eye on him as some people might." She side-eyed him.

"What." He gaped at her. "In here. Dancing. _Without a shirt._ Like clockwork?"

"Yep." She gave herself one last critical once-over in the full-length mirror, then turned and patted his cheek. "Dancing with men, in case your brains have gone south with most of your blood. Lots of men. Different men each time. Maybe just dance partners, but he doesn't seem to mind very close quarters and mutual grinding while dancing."

She bent over him and he inhaled her perfume and makeup as she air-kissed his cheek and murmured in his ear, "Take my advice, sugar: just bone him and get it out of your system."

She straightened and turned to the door. He blinked after her, then sprang to his feet. "Wait, Wednesdays?"

"Every other Wednesday like clockwork."

He followed her into the corridor leading to the stage. "Every _other_ Wednesday. Wednesday is three days from now! But is this week an on-Wednesday or an off-Wednesday?"

"I don't keep that close tabs, sugar. But I expect I'll see you in three days." She waved at him and stepped out onto the stage to a roar and the blast of disco.

He Skyped Scott as soon as he got home. "Dude, I've got a date on Wednesday!"

Scott's face lit up. "Seriously? Way to go, buddy! With Mr. Hot No-Pants?" He laughed like he figured he was the second coming of Bob Hope.

Stiles _hah-hahed_ dutifully, then went on to explain.

"Okay," Scott said slowly, "so this isn't so much a date as it is a stalking."

Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not stalking him! I'm just...going on a date with myself to Jungle on Wednesday evening. It's not like I haven't done that before. Loads of times."

"On a Wednesday?"

"Shaking up one's routine is good for the soul, Scotty. Also, it can help one to meet new, unexpected people completely accidentally."

\-----

Choosing his clothes to go to Jungle wasn't something that usually took up much of his time. Choosing his clothes to go to Jungle and possibly seeing Hale _without a shirt_ and sweaty and glowing required a lot more care, somehow.

First off: dark pants. No, make that loose dark pants with room to, um, grow without, hopefully, showing the world any partial hard-ons he might throw if a shirtless Hale sent him tumbling back into adolescence and its awkward control issues. Not that he was expecting any such reaction. He was a grown up, dignified adult.

He tried on and discarded ten shirts before grabbing the second one he'd discarded on the bed and pulling it on. He tilted his head and considered his image in the mirror. Plaid was a good look on him, no matter what other people said, worn over a tight white T-shirt. The combo made him look...nerdy-geeky. Sort of. Nerdy-geeky with wide shoulders. He pushed the sleeves up to bare his forearms. Then he glanced up and noticed his hair and scrambled into the bathroom to tame the wildness--a little.

He arrived early and had a quick drink at the bar to calm his nerves--yeah, right--before switching to Diet Coke for the night. He turned and leaned back against the bar, _faux_ casual, _faux_ relaxed, and looked over the crowd. The floor wasn't jammed yet, but there were numerous shirtless men and he studied each one before moving to the next. Since a steady stream of new shirtless torsos kept expanding the pool, the task never really reached an end; fortunately, it had its own compensations.

Until it did acquire its end-point: because Hale was there. Stiles heard the tell-tale _swish-swish_ when his back was turned, and froze facing the bar with his glass halfway to his mouth. He set it down and slowly turned around and _there_ , not ten feet in front of him, was Derek fucking Hale in all his glory, black leather skirt, black leather boots, and _no shirt_. Hale was dancing with his arms up to some terrible number from the '80's, and his skirt swished and his boots clomped and his _knees_ , his freaking knees kept bending and straightening and pointing in different directions just the way...knees did! Only they were usually invisible!

Like Hale's abs and shoulder muscles and biceps usually were, too!

If Stiles' jaw hadn't already been touching the floor, it would've hit it when Hale spun around, showing off his muscled back and a large tattoo dead center between his shoulder blades like a target. Like a dark, spiraling target for Stiles' tongue, which needed to follow those lines and taste the salty sweat while his nose burrowed into the tufts of black hair beneath Hale's arms that kept tantalizing him with glimpses of them as Hale moved.

He sank onto the nearest stool, legs unsteady.

Only to straighten when Hale broke away from the crowd and strode over to him, straight to Stiles, swish-swish-swish and knees and all. He stopped in front of Stiles, close enough for the scent of his sweat to tickle Stiles' nose, and grinned at him.

"Hello, Mr. Stiles. Fancy meeting you here."

Stiles snapped his mouth shut and his eyes up from dark nipples and a gleaming scattering of hair to Hale's face. "Yes! Fancy that! What a coincidence, seeing you here, too! By accident. An accidental meeting. Who'd've expected that?"

His mouth was dry, but he'd have to let go of the edge of the bar to grab his drink. Also, any attempt to turn at this point would probably result in his face-planting against Hale's chest, which would be a very, very...bad thing. Bad. Yes.

Hale's smile widened into that amusement that was becoming familiar.

"You're not dancing, Mr. Stiles."

Stiles frowned. "Would you stop that?"

"Hmm?"

"Using the kids' name for me. It's disconcerting. In a disconcertable way that disconcerts me. Outside of the kids using it, which is totally appropriate and not disconcerting at all." He felt his face heat up and sent thanks to the god of strobe lights for inventing them and putting them into gay bars to hide embarrassing peccadilloes such as happened when Stiles lost control of his mouth.

Hale, however, just seemed even more amused. Even his eyebrows seemed to be laughing.

"Do you prefer Mr. Stilinski?" Hale made some kind of signal with his hand--his naked hand attached to a naked arm attached to a very naked chest--as he spoke. The wide silver bangle on his arm twinkled.

Distracted, Stiles said, "Stiles."

Hale's eyes centered back on him with intensity and his voice dropped to a growl. "Stiles."

Stiles' eyes widened.

Then Hale leaned toward him and his arm reached out and past him and--came back into sight holding a glass. Oh. The mysterious, sexy signaling must've been to the bartender.

Hale's inner arm brushed against Stiles' bare forearm where it was still stretched along the bar holding him up.

"Oh, crap."

Hopefully Hale didn't hear Stiles' squeak over the sound of his own swallowing as he drank an entire tall glass of ice water with a lemon slice in it in one long move, head thrown back and throat flexing.

When Hale reached past him again to set the glass down, the brush against Stiles' arm was deliberate. Hale's lips were damp and red within the dark frame of his stubble as he smiled, looking like a cobra might just before striking its prey, if a cobra had gleaming teeth and sweaty abs and the smell of leather.

"So, you're not dancing." Hale was swaying a little, but his feet were set apart and he was a rock solid barrier between Stiles and everywhere else in the entire world.

Stiles collected his thoughts and gathered his cool and unstuck his hands from the bar so he could grab his glass.

"I can't really dance," he shouted over the music. "I sort of just flail. My legs and my arms tend to go where they want and the result's chaotic."

"I know." Hale grinned at him. "You're like a whirlwind that creates its own vortex. An awesome force of nature."

Stiles laughed, startled. "I've heard it described various times and ways, but never that positively." He paused. "Wait. You've seen me dance?"

"Sure." Hale was definitely swaying his hips now, which meant his black leather skirt was swaying, too. "This isn't my first time here."

Stiles swiped a finger over the sweat on his upper lip as the _swish-swish-swish_ grew louder in his ears than the freaking music. He tried to focus on the puzzle tugging at his brain.

"You've seen me dance, like, here?"

Hale nodded. "Lots of times. You're hard to miss, what with your ability to clear a space around you when you dance and your full-body immersion."

"But--" He gasped in air, trying to orient himself to this info. "But when--how--?"

Hale shrugged. His broad, muscled, gleaming naked shoulders _shrugged_. "Years ago. Used to see you a lot before you left."

"Left." Stiles blinked. "I went to college."

Hale nodded, still smiling and swaying. His eyes were hooded in the flashing lights.

Stiles swallowed. "Let me get this straight. You and I both danced on this dance floor at the same time. Years ago, you and I were in here at the _same time_ and _shared this dance floor_! Multiple times!"

Hale's eyebrows did a dipsy-do in answer.

"I never noticed you. I can't believe I never noticed you!"

Hale just shrugged again, still grinning, still swaying. "I was too old for you."

Stiles narrowed his eyes. "You never asked me to dance. Or danced into my line of sight so I couldn't help noticing you."

Hale laughed. "You were too young. It wouldn't have been cool. Wouldn't have worked out, either."

"I'm not too young now." A smile tugged at his lips and he felt loose, all the tension flowing away.

The past was the past, but the present was looking damned promising.

"No, you're not."

"And you're just the right age." Stiles slid off the stool, which brought them almost touching chest-to-naked-chest.

He understood Hale's amusement over the past weeks, now, and gave into his own urge to grin. He circled his fingers around Hale's forearm and slid them down slowly, watching the warmth kindle in Hale's eyes pretty much on a level with his, then closed his fingers delicately around Hale's wrist, feeling the bangle's cool metal. He tugged, just a tiny question, and Hale moved with him to the floor.

Then he got to watch Hale in motion between his own erratic dance moves, watch the sweat build to a sheen across Hale's broad shoulders. Stiles ran a finger up the valley in Hale's breastbone and licked Hale's sweat from it, watching Hale lick his lips as his eyes fixed on Stiles' mouth.

He even managed a flick of his tongue along one spiral edge of the tattoo on Hale's back, which made Hale start, then twirl around and grab Stiles into a manic fest of swaying, sweat, and _swish-swish-swish_ , the whole lot assaulting all his senses at once.

Somehow, they managed not to make the Jungle spontaneously combust, but Stiles figured it was a close miss.

The music eventually geared down into a slow number and they calmed, arms sliding around each other and foreheads touching, resting against each other. With the peacefulness and catching his breath, some of Stiles' unease, the cold light of reality, also trickled back into his brain.

"So, Mr. Hale, I thought you were straight." He kept his voice low, under the music, intimate and close.

Hale's smile was even hotter at close range than it was from a few feet away. "I'm the least straight guy around. And, come on, Mr. Hale? Still?"

Stiles smiled. "Derek." He sobered. "But you have two kids."

Derek's own smile slipped and he was quiet long enough that Stiles thought he wasn't going to answer, that wherever they might've been headed had reached its dead-end. Tension was flooding his muscles, readying him to pull away, when Derek finally spoke, in an even lower voice, so Stiles had to focus to hear.

"Technically, I'm their uncle. My older sister, Laura, and her partner were killed. Talia was only ten months old and Garvey was two; neither of them remembers their parents. Legally, I'm their father, and I'm the only parent they know."

Stiles nodded. "You are their father in every way."

"I'll tell them when they're older, give them their parents' things, the pictures, all my memories. There's no point in them going through childhood with the idea of death so close to them."

"Tally loves you to bits. That's obvious in everything she says, every family picture she draws, and every time she sees you and her face lights up." He tightened his hands on Derek's shoulders.

Derek's hands on his hips squeezed gently before sliding around to lock at the small of Stiles' back, bringing them even closer together.

"They're great kids. I never expected to be a parent, especially not that soon, and I'll miss Laura my entire life, but I can't imagine my own life without them now."

"Yeah." He tried to swallow past the scratchiness in his throat. "Speaking of which.... I like you and I've got the idea you like me, and have for awhile." He tilted his head and waited until Derek's eyebrows gave him a _Duh_. "My friends keep saying I should just bone you and get it out of my system."

Derek startled him with a loud laugh and his head thrown back. "Jesus fuck, that's exactly what mine have been saying ever since you came back to town."

He leaned in for a kiss, but paused, waiting, until Stiles closed the gap. Derek's mouth opened under his lips and Stiles rubbed his tongue against Derek's, ran it along the unevenness of Derek's two front teeth, pulled his tongue back into his own mouth with Derek's following. Derek's mouth tasted of the cleanness of the lemon-flavored water he'd drunk; he hoped Derek didn't mind the taste of Diet Coke. When they broke the kiss, Stiles realized the music had speeded up again and he and Derek were an oasis of calm within the colorful twirl.

"Of course, there's always the danger we'd follow their advice and it wouldn't fuck it out of our systems." Derek's voice fanned warm breath across his cheek.

"Well, it might just take more than once. We could keep trying. Good advice shouldn't just be ignored."

Derek's chuckle made Stiles shiver, and he struggled to reach for that cold wash of reality.

"But I'm Tally's teacher, so this is--anything more between us would be inappropriate."

Derek grinned and licked a stripe up the sweaty side of Stiles' face. "Only for the next seven months," he whispered into Stiles' ear.

"What?"

"In seven months, school will be out. Tally will be going into first grade next year and no longer your student. I'm pretty sure you were intending to pass her even without anything between us."

"Hell, yeah, of course! She's one of the most advanced in the class. No teacher in the world would keep her back."

"Well, then. What say we spend the next seven months getting to know each other better, then see how things go from there?"

Stiles quirked a grin. "Like, say, every other Wednesday here?"

Derek's answer was a growl in his ear and a grind of his leather-clad pelvis against Stiles' black denims. "It's a date."

###### Epilogue

Summer was the most glorious season to fall in love! All the blue skies and fluffy clouds and other poetic fallacies. Pity he actually fell in love months ago when it was all rain, grayness, and cold, cutting winds.

Or not so much a pity. He tightened his fingers around Derek's wrist where it rested on Stiles' chest and turned his head. Derek was asleep beside him on the blanket in the shade of the big cottonwood, his whole body relaxed, breathing rhythmic and quiet. Even his eyebrows looked at rest, and given how much of Derek's conversational load they carried, they needed it. He resisted the urge to reach out and stroke Derek's nearest stubbled cheek. He'd had free rein to touch and lick and kiss and stroke as much as he'd wanted since school ended two months ago and he and Derek had graduated themselves from twice-monthly dance-and-orgasm-free-make-outs at Jungle, with increasing amounts of talking at tables in relatively quiet corners, to orgasm-centric activities in far more private venues.

He was sorry to lose Tally as a student, he really was; but getting to hit home runs with her dad _and_ have her as part of his new, extended family was fucking great compensation.

He looked past Derek to the playground cum obstacle course/training field where Erica and Boyd, with Dad's assistance, were putting G and T through their paces. Dang, he was going to end up calling Tally "T" just like everyone else in the pack soon despite his efforts. At least she seemed to enjoy having double names, one for family and one for outsiders. The habit helped her and Garvey remember when they needed to be cautious and when they could be entirely themselves, so, in that sense, although he thought Tally was a pretty name, he was happy to become one of the insiders.

G, with a curdling yell, managed a leap from a high branch in an alder tree to a rolling somersault on the ground. Stiles' breath caught, but Boyd, who'd been directing and carefully watching him, caught him up immediately and gave him a high-five, then a hug. T, naturally, clamored to be allowed to try the leap, too, but Erica and Dad directed her to a lower branch.

The whole werewolf revelation had been a shocker, of course, but it was amazing how many niggling little things he'd noticed--like extra strength, schoolyard scrapes that healed remarkably quickly, uncanny hearing and so on--slotted into place when Derek had finally told him. He'd known already that Derek's interest in him had expanded in synch with the organic growth of Stiles' own feelings over the past months, but having Derek trust him enough to share his family's most deadly secret had cemented it.

He understood the tensions and strangeness about Duke and his family in light of the werewolf revelations better, too. Duke had settled his pack on the borders of the Hale territory in what might or might not be a deliberately provocative move.

"Are the twins really his kids?" he'd asked Derek.

"I don't think so. I don't know where they came from; orphaned omegas he happened across, maybe. Kids left without a pack can't go into the ordinary foster system, so they need to be taken in by another pack or die on their own." Derek had frowned. "Hell, Duke and his pack could've killed the rest of the twins' pack. I don't have any reason to think it, just that it wouldn't surprise me. I'm not sure what all Duke, Ennis, and Kali are capable of."

"So that's why Tally was able to scare the twins away from her and Anya."

Derek had nodded. "The school's in Hale territory. Deucalion's being careful, so far, not to overstep the boundaries. He asked permission for the boys to attend the school. I can withdraw that permission just as easily." He'd chuckled. "Though she can be pretty intimidating all on her own. She and G don't like bullies. They've had it drummed into them that humans don't have our strength and it's bad to hurt anybody weaker than you."

Stiles had met Isaac at last, too, the final member of the pack, after the revelation. Isaac had come home from college a few weeks ago and settled back into the big Hale house on the edge of the Preserve, surrounded by their land. He vaguely remembered Isaac Lahey from school, where he didn't think they'd ever spoken to each other. Somehow, though, he'd retained the impression of a pale, skinny kid with thick curls, a shy, nervous manner, and bruises that came and went. Isaac was all grown up and confident in his skin now.

It'd been even more of a shock when Erica had told him she and Stiles shared some classes in high school and that she'd had a crush on him.

He'd eyed her in her black leather pencil skirt and matching red stilettos and lipstick and tumbled mass of blonde curls, and lifted a judgmental eyebrow at his teenaged self. He'd failed to notice both Derek and Erica? What the hell, self!

"I looked different then." Erica had smirked at him. "Don't worry: I moved on to something even better." In true Erica fashion, she wolf-whistled at Boyd as he tossed a squealing T into the air, his shirt riding up to show the top of his treasure trail.

Dad had embraced the idea of being a surrogate grandpa even before Derek and Stiles had figured out they were in for the long haul together. G and T loved him, and Derek himself had suggested giving Dad the big reveal after Stiles had adjusted to the overturning of his entire concept of the world.

Stiles sought out Dad's eyes across the clearing and Dad gave him a smile and wink before ghosting away behind the house. His sheriff skills made him an ace at hiding so the kids had to stretch all their senses in tracking him; hide-and-seek being, like many of the games they played with the kids, both play and training.

Anya and her mother often spent time with the pack, too, though they weren't _part_ of the pack: they didn't know the secret. Right now, they were at a clinic in Los Angeles getting the first of Anya's laser treatments. Derek had finally convinced her mother to let him pay for them. 

Life was fucking good, was all he was saying.

Oh, and of course he'd solved the mystery of whether Derek Hale wore anything under his black leather skirt or not back before they'd even reached the mutual orgasm stage of their relationship, but that was one secret he was taking to his grave. The rest of the world could speculate all it wanted--and he saw the looks directed at Derek! don't think he didn't!--but only he, Stiles Stilinski, would ever know the truth.

Exactly as it should be.


End file.
